New Bartender With a Familiar Name

By Ephraim G. Hirsch

Aug. 10, 2017

Dear Diary:

My wife and I stopped into Sardi’s one night for our traditional pre-theater martinis. José Estevez, a longtime bartender there, had recently retired, and we had yet to make the acquaintance of his successor, a tall fellow.

As we settled onto our stools, the telephone on a side wall rang and the bartender picked it up. I said to my wife that it reminded me of the old-time radio show “Duffy’s Tavern,” which opened with the bartender answering the phone and saying: “Hello, Duffy’s Tavern, where the elite meet to eat. Archie the manager speakin’. Duffy ain’t here.”

At which point, our new — and, by now, familiar — host turned, and said, “My name is Duffy.”